I think the Joe admin staff is full of no-name Brownshirts. I just can't see the unit "wasting" a frontline soldier on a desk job.

It's like Ewan McGregor's character in Blackhawk Down says when he's asked why he's riding a desk: "I have an uncurable disease. It's called the ability to type."

But that character is good too, because Grimes shows that even a Ranger riding a desk is still good enough to get right up and go out to the field.

But the Joe unit would need a full time admin staff. Sure Alpine can do the books when he's on base, but who takes care of it when he's on a mission? And better pray he doesn't get killed on a mission and all that stuff he forgot to put on paper is lost with him...

No, the Joes would have a non-mission admin/support staff: nurses, admin, mechanics, etc..

Don't forget Hardball. We managed to get a lot of juvenile giggle mileage out of calling him "hard balls" (we were very easy to amuse as kids).

We also tried to use "crap" as much as we could, leading to classic witticisms like Craptor and Muskrap.

Easy to amuse as kids? "Hard Balls" is funny, I don't care how old you are.

I kind of liked it when Hama would throw in the occasional oddball secondary MOS. In some cases, I think it was done to put kind of an ironic spin on a character, create something unexpected about them. When you look at Roadblock, you don't think "chef" right off the bat. You probably wouldn't peg a SWAT guy like Shockwave as a singer, so his 2nd MOS is choir. Just an easy way to add a character quirk. Sometimes its easy to forget that the file cards were meant to establish personalities as well as military qualifications.

I never took the odd 2nd MOSs to mean that those jobs fell on those Joes. Roadblack is a chef but that doesn't mean he runs the kitchen at the PITT. Maybe once in awhile, he whips up something special for everybody. If Dusty's around when the air conditioner breaks down, maybe he helps out. But yeah, the Joes would definitely need a full support staff to keep things running on a daily basis.

For that matter, Stalker and Falcon are both qualified medics, but you probably wouldn't send either of them on a mission to fill solely that role.

Yeah, I always wondered what that red beret on his vest was all about. A memento from cross-training with USAF CCTs or the Canadian Forces Military Police? A bold fashion statement?

I think it could be from time spent with an airborne unit. But most likely it's just artistic license. If they painted the correct black color, it would blend into the vest and people would still be wondering what the heck it was. I believe the Brits and Israelis are more likely to wear their berets in this manner. I think Tom Cruise in Taps wears his beret like that.

__________________Dr. Venture: Why is it every time I need to get somewhere, we get waylaid by jackassery?

I think the Joe admin staff is full of no-name Brownshirts. I just can't see the unit "wasting" a frontline soldier on a desk job.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lister

I never took the odd 2nd MOSs to mean that those jobs fell on those Joes.

My understanding is similar to lister's. I just assumed that the Joes were qualified in their secondary MOSes, but didn't actively pursue those duties in the course of their tenure with the GI Joe team. So a guy like Thunder, for example, is a qualified bandsman/drummer, but that doesn't mean he plays drums for some heretofore unseen "GI Joe band" when he's not laying down artillery fire in combat. I think for some Joe filecards, it was just an easy and convenient way for Hama to add personality or an ironic twist to the characters' backgrounds (e.g., Wildcard being a qualified Chaplain's Assistant).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Troynos

I like Deep-Six. Is that David Bowie? Face looks familiar. I'd hate to have to wear that suit, talk about uncomfortable.

It's a young DeForest ("Dr. McCoy") Kelley. I can see the similarity to Space Oddity-era David Bowie, though. Yeah, and the Med-Eng EOD 9 Suit can get terribly hot. It's actually got fittings in the back that can be connected to an external air conditioning unit. I know they've been testing a variant of the suit in Iraq and Afghanistan, composed of only the helmet, upper body armour and air conditioning unit, to provide protection for HMMWV and FMTV machine gunners. I don't know if it's any cheaper or more practical than just using remote-operated weapons stations though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Troynos

I did like in DDP when Black-Out was getting courtmartialed that Airborne was the lawyer.

Airborne being a lawyer is just one of those things that I couldn't wrap my head around (at least once I learned more about how recruitment works). I just can't see how an Army recruiter would let a bar-qualified lawyer sign up as an enlisted man. He/She would would have done everything to get an Army-minded lawyer to go to Officer Candidate School instead and grab a direct officer's commission, or at least gotten him to go to Warrant Officer Candidate School. It's the equivalent of a medical doctor signing up in the Army as an enlisted man to become a field medic, instead of grabbing a direct commission to become a medical officer. It just doesn't happen in real life (or maybe it does, but I've never heard of it actually happening).

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackrazor1

I think it could be from time spent with an airborne unit. But most likely it's just artistic license. If they painted the correct black color, it would blend into the vest and people would still be wondering what the heck it was.

Yeah, that's probably it. The 1986 Beach Head's gear was hard enough to decipher for me as a kid even without the lumpy vest (it was only years later, with my discovery of YoJoe.com, that I found out that the "umbrella" on his original backpack was supposed to be part of a scaled-down mine-clearing charge).